Friday, July 31, 2009

The great crime writer Donald Westlake (1933–2008) may have passed on, but that isn't keeping him off bookshelves. He has a brand-new hardcover in stores, Get Real (Grand Central), the final comic caper for John Dortmunder and his gang. Publishers Weekly promises the misadventure "will rouse chuckles from even jaded readers." Booklist raves, "With brilliant restraint and perfectly pitched deadpan dialogue, Westlake keeps his characters dancing precariously along the knife’s edge of absurdity."

But that's not all -- Hard Case Crime has unearthed an unpublished Westlake novel. Memory was written in the early 1960s, but Westlake's agent suggested it was too "literary" and encouraged the author to concentrate on more commercial crime fiction. Memory is the story of a man who is assaulted and wakes up in a hospital bed suffering from a peculiar sort of brain damage that makes it hard to form new memories or retain old ones. Far from home, hounded by the police, and desperate to reconstruct his lost life, he sets out on an extraordinary private investigation -- a missing persons case in which he himself is the missing person.

Memory finally sees print April 2010. Check out the cover and a sample chapter at HardCaseCrime.com.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Upcoming DVD releases of detective and crime TV shows, including several British entries, a Charlie's Angels 'best-of', complete series sets from Homicide: Life on the Street and The Unit, and more. Updates on TVShowsonDVD:

Monday, July 27, 2009

Best Mann For The Job #23: Here's where our parallel stories begin to converge ... as the bank robbers, desperate for medical attention, are headed straight to Hope Falls -- and newly-elected Sheriff Grace Mann. (I can't wait for y'all to see what happens next!)

Best Mann For The Job stars Grace Mann, a woman with a complicated past who returns home to become sheriff of Hope Falls, Tennessee. This serial drama aspires to the style of the classic continuity comic strips, with the crime-bustin' chops of a rural Dick Tracy, the small-town charm of Gasoline Alley, and the emotional touches of The Heart of Juliet Jones. (Or if you prefer, think of it as a cross between T.J. Hooker and Northern Exposure.)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

BEHIND THAT CURTAINCharlie Chan finds himself back in San Francisco working with an inspector from Scotland Yard to investigate a series of murders in which each victim is found wearing ominous Chinese slippers.

THE BLACK CAMELCharlie Chan is aided by a mysterious fortune teller named Tarneverro the Great to solve the murder of a glamorous Hollywood movie star who has been killed on location in Honolulu.

"It takes a special kind of wit to resurrect Charlie Chan, as Academy Chicago has done…ingenious puzzle mysteries written by Earl Derr Biggers in the 1920s." -- Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

"Reading these books is a definite pleasure. Author Biggers is a smooth strategist, clever plotter and keen observer, and the novels give the same escapist tingle as the best of Agatha Christie." -- Burl Burlingame, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

"The early Chan novels combine solid entertainment value with a quest ... to portray both Hawaii's culture and Asian Americans' place with in said culture in a positive light." -- Sarah Weinman, Los Angeles Times

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Stephanie Plum-creator Janet Evanovich has long wanted to get into comics. But she's been busy writing best-selling mysteries like Plum Spooky and Finger Lickin' Fifteen -- there are 30 million copies of Evanovich's books in print worldwide. (She's counted as one of the ten richest authors in the world.)

Now, Evanovich and daughter Alex finally worked out a way to transfer her NASCAR mysteries starring Alex Barnaby to the funny pages. The crime-solving mechanic's previous appearances were in the novels Metro Girl and Motor Mouth, but the third entry will be a graphic novel in 2010 from Dark Horse Comics.

"We're comic book fans; we’re huge Nascar fans," Evanovich told the New York Times. "It allows me to feed my Nascar addiction and comic book addiction all at the same time."

If it wasn't for Uncle Scrooge when I was a kid, I do not think I would be writing the Plum books ... Because “Uncle Scrooge” is an adventure story. Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck ,and Huey, Dewey, and Louie -- in every story they have an adventure. They are out looking for gold, they are in the Amazon, they are in outer space, the Beagle Boys are after them. When I was a kid, I really wanted to push my quarters around with a bulldozer. I always wanted to be Uncle Scrooge. And this is what I write -- I'm writing Uncle Scrooge in Trenton, New Jersey. Indiana Jones in Trenton, New Jersey. It's all the same. These are adventures, they are on a quest.

Doctor Who is forced to solve a murder mystery in space -- among a species of aliens for whom time flows backward. In comic book stores this week, Doctor Who: Room With a Deja View (IDW Publishing) is written by Rich Johnston, with art by Eric J (Rex Mundi).

Johnston is no stranger to murder mysteries: The longtime comics columnist played a key role in a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation story where he was murdered. (He got better.) Johnston now hosts the comics site Bleeding Cool, serving all your comics news, conjecture, and rumor-mongering needs.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Fans of "defective detective" Adrian Monk preparing for his final season can catch up on past adventures with the DVD release of Monk: Season Seven, in stores today (July 21). The set features all sixteen episodes, including guest stars Brad Garrett, David Strathairn, Eric McCormack, Sarah Silverman, Hector Elizando, John Turturro ... not to mention the all-star 100th episode, "Mr. Monk’s 100th Case!"

Monday, July 20, 2009

Best Mann For The Job #22: This week's one-panel emergency-worker drama is *almost* a swipe of Action Comics #1 -- because when I wrote the script, I got out my battered old hardcover copy of Superman: From the 30's to the 70's (Bonanza Books)*, pointed to page 16 and told my wife, "Try to make it look like this."

Alas, Erica held to such higher standards as "integrity" and "good storytelling" and "I don't want to get sued." So while the result alludes to the aforementioned comics cover, it is actually more original than I'd hoped.

For those of you who wonder what I'm talking about: Action Comics #1 is the 1938 comic book that introduced the world's first superhero -- Superman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. (According to Wikipedia, the cover to Action Comics #1 remains one of the most homaged covers of all time.) Superman, of course, spent the following 70-plus years making billions of dollars for his corporate owner. And, all these years later, the original series is still being published -- and is just months away from its milestone 900th issue.

Best Mann For The Job stars Grace Mann, a woman with a complicated past who returns home to become sheriff of Hope Falls, Tennessee. This serial drama aspires to the style of the classic comic strips, with the crime-bustin' chops of a rural Dick Tracy, the small-town charm of Gasoline Alley, and the emotional touches of The Heart of Juliet Jones. (Or if you prefer, think of it as a cross between T.J. Hooker and Northern Exposure.)

Friday, July 17, 2009

Sue Grafton, Faye Kellerman, and Tess Gerritsen reveal the tricks of the crime-writing trade in this interview with Masterpiece Mystery. They also discuss their famous characters, and their shared admiration for Agatha Christie.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

As both a mystery writer and comics fans, I think whoever came up with this is a genius: The upcoming comic book mini-series Models, Inc. is a murder mystery starring the runway models of the Marvel Comics universe. When Millicent Collins ("Millie the Model") is the prime suspect in the murder of a set designer, her friends Patsy Walker (Hellcat) and Mary Jane Watson (the ex- Mrs. Spider-Man -- long story) team up to clear her name.

As reported by the TODAY show: "Fashion and comics aren’t as incongruous as they may sound. Back in the '60s, while boys were discovering then-new heroes like Iron Man, girls were enjoying female-oriented characters like Millie the Model, who had been juggling romance and career going back to the '40s." Comics news site Newsarama gives readers a rundown of the various divas' comics history.

The mini-series even guest stars a real-life fashion icon, Project Runway's Tim Gunn, who jumps into Iron Man's suit of armor to help out.

Here's the official description from Marvel: Fashion Week is always a hectic time for models, and this year is no exception. Between escaped wolves, robbery attempts, and overly friendly police officers, Mary Jane Watson, Patsy Walker, Jill Jerold, Chili Storm and Millicent (Millie the Model) Collins are testing the limits of their endurance. But when a brilliant young set designer is found murdered with three bullet holes in his back, and Millie proves to be the prime suspect, the models are forced to play detective in order to save one of their own!

"At heart, it's a murder mystery," writer Paul Tobin tells Comic Book Resources. "It's almost Agatha Christie/Nancy Drew, but with very pretty ladies, and set in the Marvel Universe ... within those parameters I tried to remain true to the models' characters, which are fairly whimsical."

Now up to installment #21 of Best Mann For The Job. If it seems like this whole car chase is taking weeks, that's because this is written as a daily comic strip ... and published on a weekly schedule. Frankly, you're watching the original pilot as we're still making it.

What's great about the slower schedule is it gives Erica and me a chance to watch as we go and fine-tune it. For example, once the bank robbers reached the Interstate and were on their way to Hope Falls (which is where the series is actually set), we simply stayed with them and never saw this turned-over gas truck again. However, Erica suggested we let the emergency play out -- and I scripted a couple additional strips to the sequence. (Which, in a daily newspaper, would be a couple days ... but on our current publication schedule means a couple weeks.)

Best Mann For The Job stars Grace Mann, a woman with a complicated past who returns home to become sheriff of Hope Falls, Tennessee. We like to think of it as a cross between a rural Dick Tracy and Gasoline Alley. (Or if you prefer, T.J. Hooker and Northern Exposure.)

Friday, July 10, 2009

A roundup of links from the world of publishing - including a book deal for ABC's fictional sleuth Richard Castle, the serialization of a long-lost whodunit by Graham Greene, how Elmore Leonard writes all those books, and why Wonder Woman still needs permission to fight domestic violence in Kentucky ...

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Big news in the world of comic strips (and syndicated content): traditional media's Universal Press Syndicate and new media's Uclick have been combined to form a single syndication and licensing arm of parent company Andrews McMeel Universal. "This historic move brings together two industry leading companies to create a dynamic new organization," says company founder, chairman, and president John McMeel, "capable of supporting today's renowned creative talents and the superstars of tomorrow, propelling them to new levels of popularity and success, as well as looking to the future by creating new distribution channels and outlets for this beloved art form."

Following the reorganization, Andrews McMeel Universal now has two major branches: Universal Uclick and Andrews McMeel Publishing, a leading publisher of humor, gift, general trade, cookbooks, and calendars (including the two most expensive New York Times Best-sellers on record, The Complete Far Side and The Complete Calvin and Hobbes). The combined muscle of the two divisions gives Andrews McMeel Universal a unique position to offer access to multi-channel distribution for authors and artists.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

We're now up to the 20th installment of Erica's and my drama/mystery series, Best Mann For The Job. Those with a keen eye may have noticed our subtle tribute to the legendary Osamu Tezuka (1929-1989), the first cartoonist to apply cinematographic techniques to Japanese comics.

In our original outline for this first arc of "Best Mann For The Job," our plan for the bank robbers was to simply have them jump in the car, get shot, and then lose their pursuers. But -- given what's coming up when they reach Hope Falls and cross paths with Grace Mann (who is, after all, the star of our series) -- we realized how much it would raise the stakes if these guys really caused some damage ... and, in the process, were more desperate themselves.

Once we hit upon the idea of stretching out the car chase, bringing in the gas truck and all, it brought to mind that Mr. Tezuka's artistic breakthrough is said to have occurred when he expanded a dramatic racing sequence in 1947's New Treasure Island. As such, it seemed appropriate to tip our hat to the man who went on to create Astro Boy, Black Jack, and Kimba the White Lion -- and transformed Japanese comics and animation. (Which, in turn, rampantly influenced so much here in the West, as well.)

Best Mann For The Job stars Grace Mann, a woman with a complicated past who returns home to become sheriff of Hope Falls, Tennessee. We like to think of it as a cross between a rural Dick Tracy and Gasoline Alley. (Or, for you couch potatoes, a cross between The Andy Griffith Show and Northern Exposure ... with a little T.J. Hooker thrown in.)

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

My agent, the lovely and talented Chip MacGregor, regularly answers questions about the business of writing at his official blog. Recently, he took on a slew of basic questions, ranging from manuscript word count to what to expect from a potential agent to the definitions of buzzwords ...

Die Laughing: Funny Crime and Mystery Fiction

SHE'S THE SHERIFF!

A woman with a complicated past returns home to become the small town's new sheriff. Best Mann For The Job is by the writer/artist team of Chris and Erica Well. Read it from the beginning at StudioWell.com. Watch the trailer on YouTube.

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About Me

I'm a novelist and media editor. My latest fiction includes the crime comedy Too Good to be Truman and the traditional whodunit trilogy The Earl Walker Mysteries: Nursing a Grudge, Burying the Hatchet and Knocking 'Em Dead (Spyglass Lane Mysteries).